Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 12. CHAPTER TWELVE (continued)

"Not that! Not that!" he gasped out, appalled at the spell of
secrecy that had kept him dumb before so many people falling upon
his lips again with unimpaired force. Not even to her. Not even
to her. It was too dangerous. "I forbid thee to ask," he cried at
her, deadening cautiously the anger of his voice.

He had not regained his freedom. The spectre of the unlawful
treasure arose, standing by her side like a figure of silver,
pitiless and secret, with a finger on its pale lips. His soul
died within him at the vision of himself creeping in presently
along the ravine, with the smell of earth, of damp foliage in his
nostrils--creeping in, determined in a purpose that numbed his
breast, and creeping out again loaded with silver, with his ears
alert to every sound. It must be done on this very night--that
work of a craven slave!

He stooped low, pressed the hem of her skirt to his lips, with a
muttered command--

"Tell him I would not stay," and was gone suddenly from her,
silent, without as much as a footfall in the dark night.

She sat still, her head resting indolently against the wall, and
her little feet in white stockings and black slippers crossed
over each other. Old Giorgio, coming out, did not seem to be
surprised at the intelligence as much as she had vaguely feared.
For she was full of inexplicable fear now--fear of everything and
everybody except of her Giovanni and his treasure. But that was
incredible.

The heroic Garibaldino accepted Nostromo's abrupt departure with
a sagacious indulgence. He remembered his own feelings, and
exhibited a masculine penetration of the true state of the case.

"Va bene. Let him go. Ha! ha! No matter how fair the woman, it
galls a little. Liberty, liberty. There's more than one kind! He
has said the great word, and son Gian' Battista is not tame." He
seemed to be instructing the motionless and scared Giselle. . .
. "A man should not be tame," he added, dogmatically out of the
doorway. Her stillness and silence seemed to displease him. "Do
not give way to the enviousness of your sister's lot," he
admonished her, very grave, in his deep voice.